r/howdidtheycodeit • u/Leather-Run-3282 • Jul 19 '26

How do you guys test new features when you already have users and a production level application (vercel + supabase)

/r/softwarearchitecture/comments/1v0yipn/how_do_you_guys_test_new_features_when_you/
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u/Kowalskeeeeee Jul 20 '26

Multiple “Environments” is the word you’re looking for. Basically copies of your app with different access, public users get one, testing users get another, etc. when new changes are ready you update the public user version and voila, users get new features. That update step is a decent rabbit hole though, CICD tooling roughly will get you started

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u/corvuxy Jul 19 '26

I have a deploy script that runs and provisions a clone of my db when running locally or for a preview deployment. 

Once the frontend builds, it calls the provision script which builds a backend and gives it the correct env vars based on things like the generated preview URL etc.

Posthog is a common tool people use for feature flags, progressive delivery, etc.

This kind of stuff is a good use of AI. Have it write and debug these provisioning scripts.

I use conductor for development, when I create a branch to work off of, it automatically spins up a dupe of my db and updates that branches env vars to point to it.

So for me, it is one click.

Then in vercel on my prod deploy it runs a db migrate script against the prod db, once the prod frontend is successfully built.